as this year (1875) hardly distinguishable
from any other day since the rod of empire passed from the hands of a
boy to those of a baby. No festivities were possible; it was of course
unlawful to hang lamps in any profusion, and all Chinamen have been
prohibited by Imperial edict from wearing their best clothes. The
utmost any one could do in the way of enjoyment was to gorge himself
with the rice-flour balls above-mentioned, and look forward to gayer
times when the days of mourning shall be over.

OPIUM SMOKING

Many writers on Chinese topics delight to dwell upon the slow but sure
destruction of morals, manners, and men, which is being gradually
effected throughout the Empire by the terrible agency of opium.
Harrowing pictures are drawn of once well-to-do and happy districts
which have been reduced to know the miseries of disease and poverty by
indulgence in the fatal drug. The plague itself could not decimate so
quickly, or war leave half the desolation in its track, as we are told
is the immediate result of forgetting for a few short moments the
cares of life in the enjoyment of a pipe of opium. To such an extent
is this language used, that strangers arriving in China expect to see
nothing less than the stern reality of all the horrors they have heard
described; and they are astonished at the busy, noisy sight of a
Chinese town, the contented, peaceful look of China's villagers, and
the rich crops which are so readily yielded to her husbandmen by many
an acre of incomparable soil. Where, then, is this scourge of which
men speak? Evidently not in the highways, the haunts of commerce, or
in the quiet repose of far-off agricultural hamlets. Bent on search,
and probably determined to discover something, our seeker after truth
is finally conducted to an opium den, one of those miserable hells
upon earth common to every large city on the globe. Here he beholds
the vice in all its hideousness; the gambler, the thief, the beggar,
and such outcasts from the social circle, meet here to worship the god
who grants a short nepenthe from suffering and woe. This, then, is
China, and travellers' tales are but too true. A great nation has
fallen a prey to the insidious drug, and her utter annihilation is but
an affair of time!

We confess, however, we have looked for these signs in vain; but our
patience has been rewarded by the elucidation of facts which have led
us to brighter conclusions than those so generally accepted.